


Protecting The Colony

by DarkWaterFalls



Category: Avengers (Comics), Mass Effect
Genre: Alien Invasion, Chitauri - Freeform, Crossover, Engineers, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Sentinels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the First Contact War and the establishment of an Alliance presence within Citadel space the human race began settling on planets across the galaxy. Colonisation was peaceful for the most part, but at the edge of the Traverse something has risen to eradicate the colonists. But neither Loki nor Tony will be taking it lying down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protecting The Colony

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Fel (fel-as-in-tumbld.tumblr.com) who kindly beta'd this poor, broken thing of a fic. And to Hanners (sparklyslug.tumblr.com) for her suggestions too.
> 
> Title is from a track on the first Mass Effect game soundtrack.

At the barrier, the plasma cannons fixed at the top were constant in their barrage of the attacking forces, blowing holes in their armour, vaporising shielded vehicle and warrior alike. But it was never enough, they just kept on coming. Despite superior firepower and thick walls to their bases, anything the Wardens built could be torn down by the sheer might of the replicated Chitauri forces. The Chitauri’s weapons were weaker, but the single-minded assault on the fortress was relentless.

 

The final replicator ship had landed no more than four kilometres from the main fortress, one of the last stand points on the planet, and was spewing out foot soldiers at an amazing rate. It was the final battle for the colony, they live or they lose. They’d held this planet for the last decade and it could all be torn down in a few short weeks.

 

The radio at the command post crackled into life and Tony froze. “Tony, this is Command; they’re levelling new weapons at the breach!”

 

Tony let out a sound of restrained anger as he raised his head out of the battery conduit he was manipulating at the base of one of the guns and hit the response button. “Not my problem Steve! I’m currently trying to keep the guns running.”

 

A muffled curse before someone hit the response button on the other end and a voice responded. “Stark, this is Barton, we understand what you’re doing but we need a hand on reinforcing and sealing any breakage in the walls. Not physically, but advice. We’ve tried barricades, but no material is holding and the hole in the stone is getting larger.”

 

Tony holds his hand up and over the button, allowing himself several seconds to think before slamming his hand down and answering. “There should be silica-based board material in my secondary warehouse, grab that, adhesive and the standard flame-retardant foam from the incendiary kits. Layer, adhere and foam everything to kingdom come and then barricade on top of that,  it should give you some time.” He lets go of the button for a second, pauses and then slams down his hand again to roar, “and send me at least two biotics and three techs, if we fail up here your goddamn breach means nothing!”

 

“Thanks, Stark.” A pause, with a muffled argument in the background before Barton replies again. “We can barely spare anyone, but you’ve got a sentinel on their way up. Barton out.”

 

How the fuck can they spare a sentinel right now? “What do you mean a sentinel?” Tony asks, “You need them all down there running interference and...”

 

Steve answers again, “Yeah, we do. The ambassador’s son was just in Command; he’s coming up to you now.” A pause and the radio crackles again. “I’m sorry Tony.”

 

Tony just stares at the radio; he didn’t want Loki anywhere near the peak of the bombardment, he’d told him that he’d be fine with his techs and that Loki was needed for local containment. At the time, all true. They’d both known that Loki’s strength would be needed on the ground, healing, moving and protecting, but now, engineers all dead around him, Tony was selfish enough to think that he deserved to keep Loki to himself for once.

 

With Loki there, it didn’t matter if the tide turned against the enemy, it didn’t matter if anyone else died, and it didn’t matter if the fortress collapsed around them. Yeah, Tony was selfish; no one else mattered except Loki. This is why it was so important that Loki wasn’t with him when he worked, nothing else in the known universe mattered.

 

A presence behind Tony, a soft breath at his ear and a quiet, heartbreaking whisper.

 

“Now lover, if I was an enemy you’d be dead already and we’d all be up shit creek without a paddle.”

 

In that moment Tony simultaneously hopes, prays and knows deep within himself that Loki has no idea how much Tony needs him.  It doesn’t matter how many times his heart breaks with the thought, the ambassador’s son – one of the strongest sentinels in the galaxy - was never to fall for a crippled engineer on a backwater moon, and he’d had threats from the ambassador’s attaché to that effect. Keep it between the sheets and out of the heart. And Tony tried, oh he tried. He may have failed, but at least he kept it from Loki.

 

He turns around and noses up the side of Loki’s neck, breathing in the smell of him, mixed with a hint of med pack alcohol and the spark that lingers on the skin of a biotic user. God, he thought for the umpteenth time, I’m going to miss this. He smiles up at Loki and answers, “Well then my lover, we better get moving. These guns aren’t going to maintain themselves and that creek of yours is moving faster by the second.”

 

Loki smiles down at him, and steps back to gesture Tony towards the nearest cannon. “Lead the way, I’ll follow.”

 

Tony smiles and climbs up to the top of the gun, crouching beside the console. “So, how hard did you have to Throw yourself to get right up to the top?”

 

Loki crawls up beside him and shrugs before answering, “Not hard. I’ve developed the knack of manipulating the gravitational field around me, I can put it low enough that a small nudge can send me quite far.”

 

Tony quickly tries to hide his awed expression; he’s heard about this range of biotic abilities, but is always impressed by the way Loki adapts to them with ease. “Sorry to ask the idiot question,” he quips, “But what if you overshoot?”

 

Loki laughs, a bright and sharp sound, loud in the enclosed space. He leans towards Tony and nudges his shoulder against Tony’s, “well, I’m fucked then, aren’t I? Promise you’ll catch me?”

 

The frantic but slightly comical image of Tony fumbling for a floating Loki’s fingers flickers through his mind as Tony accesses the plasma cannon display. Attempting to keep the image from his mind, he remarks, “Always darling, always.”

 

Tony sets Loki up at the first cannon, quickly explaining how to bolster the failing energy supplies without overtaxing the reserves in the generator and getting Loki to recharge the shields fixed to each section of the wall as he steps by onto the next cannon. If he happens to Throw sections of fallen masonry out on to the invading army, well, that is his choice. Tony isn’t objecting.

 

Tony works on the cannon beside Loki, and they slowly moved away from each other as they completed the maintenance on the slowly failing cannons. Tony gets a congratulating message from the central Command as the barrage from the cannons picked up. He meets up with Loki at the final cannon, the cannon closest to the enemy ship, exactly three point eight kilometres away, and watches as Loki expertly adjusts the cannon’s power supply relays.

 

He turns to Tony just as Tony starts to smile. Loki shakes his head and doesn’t return the expression. “Why haven’t you told anyone the levels are so low?” he demands.

 

Tony bristles slightly at the tone of voice, naturally commanding and demanding, and responds, “I have, and I made Command aware of the situation when levels started flagging six hours ago. I can’t sap the generators any further, I’m working at the rate at which the solar panels can easily replenish the energy spent. The rest is for emergency beacon use, the hospital and when evacuation may be needed. I’m giving the cannons all we can spare.”

 

Loki’s mouth thins as he sees the swiftly approaching problem. “When the sun goes down...”

 

“We’re not going to have enough energy to run the cannons through the night.” Tony finishes.

 

They both pause as Loki realises the reality that Tony figured out eighteen hours ago, not that anyone in Command listened to him. Or maybe they did listen and accepted the situation. Tony sniffs at the smell of sand and energy weapons on the wind, casts a glance at Loki and comments, “We have about two hours until sundown, any bright ideas would be appreciated.”

 

He can see Loki’s brain working as he plays idly with the display on his Omni Tool, a piece of equipment that only highlighted to Tony the stark differences between their stations in life. Loki has the best; cutting edge of the market, probably only just within the realms of legally acquired tech, while Tony’s is repaired regularly and mismatched together from bits of tech and barely resembled his original device.

 

Loki started shooting questions at Tony, like their regular lab bantering sessions, brainstorming further all the while.

 

“Can we shoot at the main ship?”

 

“Too far, not enough range.”

 

“And if we did have the range?”

 

“The blasts run out of power just over two thirds of the way to target.”

 

“And if they didn’t?”

 

“The enemy ship has resonance shielding. We couldn’t get past it.”

 

Breaking his eyes away from the distant speck of a ship, he turns to Tony and asks, “You’ve already tried this, haven’t you?”

 

Tony steps up to the cannon, crouches beside Loki and taps on his Omni Tool to flick a diagram over to Loki’s. “I’ve plotted out the energy missile parabola, the required boosts and additional data.”

 

Loki slides him a small smile and taps at his tool; he checks the local wind speed and inputs the data into the trajectory plan. He nods and asks softly, “I can get past the shielding, can you fix the power issue?”

 

Tony frowns and murmurs softly, “Show me.” He watches as the numbers dance across Loki’s Omni Tool and a small weight settles in his chest as he tries to plan where he can obtain that level of energy from the sapped camp without addressing the only possible answer. Loki is good with numbers, passable as an engineer, but that all goes with his class. If Loki thinks it can be done, Tony will make it happen. That’s what engineers do, he thinks, the weight in his chest getting heavier. “How many shots do you need?”

 

Loki gives him another of his wide, sparkling smiles, a smile only shown for Tony. “At a minimum two, three would be better, four would be best.”

 

Tony inputs the power requirements into his Omni Tool. Even if he pulls all the energy from the camp, they’ll barely meet the target. He knows he only has one option available, so he lets out a soft sigh and says, “I can give you three, but only barely. Make sure you don’t waste them.”

 

Loki leans over and brushes his lips over Tony’s softly, the only public kiss he’s ever given Tony. It’s sweet, unexpectedly so, and just as Tony starts to lean into the touch, it’s gone. Loki sighs against his mouth, breath rushing over Tony’s lips and says, “I’ll input the data and wait for your green light.”

 

Tony slides away, commenting “you damn well better,” as he goes.

 

He catches a last glimpse of Loki, bent over the cannon display and typing swiftly, as he slides down the ladder to the maintenance hatch at the bottom of the cannon. He unlatches the hatch and drops it to the side, just as Loki shouts his readiness from the top. Trajectory accepted, cannon ready for firing. Tony reaches in, pulls out the ancillary power cables,lays them at his feet and slides down to sit with his back to the cannon base. He slowly removes his upper chest plate armour and opens his shirt to the cool evening air.

 

He turns and slides the reactor carefully out of its alignment, making sure not to jostle the connection to the base plate out of habit. His only option, to save the colony, to save Loki. There would never be enough charge in the generators for this; he’s not surprised Loki missed that in the mass of figures Tony threw at him. He couldn’t risk a massive drain on the generators; people were relying on that power. This is his only option, and that thought does not make him feel any better. He attaches the two leads to the corresponding sides of the reactor and shouts his readiness up to Loki. Tony then begins to vaguely wonder if this is going to hurt. Too late for that now, right?

 

\---

 

The first blast scatters against the ship’s shield, weakening it significantly; the second destroys the communication array and a large portion of the aft hull section and the last ignites the fuel tank and Loki has to turn his eyes away from the resulting fireball. Across the field of the Chitauri, each soldier slumps to the ground, all grotesque puppets with their strings finally cut. There is silence for a moment, and then cheers erupt over the compound, tired and overjoyed.

 

He smiles and looks around, a little confused that Tony hasn’t climbed up to celebrate with him. He makes his way over to the ladder and climbs down the rungs. Loki slips quickly around the corner to the hatch, and then freezes at the sight before him.

 

Tony is pale and slumped against the wall, Loki’s first thoughts are ones of power outages and overloads, but everything went to plan up top on the cannon, so what happened?

 

He then sees the leads clamped to Tony’s reactor and the terror sets in. Loki is in front of him in a moment and sees the blue of Tony’s lips, can hear the ragged and gasping breaths. He detaches the leads and sets the reactor back in place, clicking it into position as Tony had shown him. But the reactor is dark and Tony’s breathing is not getting any better. He uses some Medi-gel and sets about attempting to heal Tony more, just to be caught by a weak hand on his wrist.

 

“Hey, love.” The low rumble came from Tony.

 

Love, not lover. Loki startles at the word. He was never to admit anything himself, had been frequently cautioned against attachments at far out postings, but oh... did he want this one to be true.

 

Tony tilts his head back to rest against the metal at his back and smiles at Loki. “Isn’t there some kid’s story back where you came from about someone getting injured on a wall and being unable to be put back together again?”

 

He chokes on the words, “That’s a children’s story, a nursery rhyme.” Loki starts to raise his hand again, calling something, anything to him. “I can save you, I can save you.” He repeats, over and over.

 

Tony smiles and answers, “No you can’t, not now.” He brings Loki’s hand up to his cheek and kisses his palm. “I love you, you know that?”

 

Loki can’t hold it back any more, he starts to cry. He buries a hand in Tony’s shirt and slides a hand into Tony’s hair. “Please let me save you!” he sobs, “I have to save you. Have to.”

 

Loki feels Tony’s head shake against his palm. “You know you can’t.”

 

Loki slides his head forwards, against the body-warm metal of the reactor, hearing Tony’s straining breaths. One sharp inhalation in and Tony asks, “Loki, please look at me.” Loki’s head rises until they are eye to eye. Tony smiles and leans forward to rest his forehead against Loki’s. “Listen to me. Listen...Loki, I gave you this as a gift. Please don’t waste it.”

 

Loki shakes his head, almost dislodging the connection with Tony.

 

“Promise me you won’t waste it.”

 

“I won’t. I promise I won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> There was a reason why Fel's comments mainly consisted of "noooooooooo..." responses.
> 
>  
> 
> There is a bit more to the end of the story, but it was felt that the ending was cleaner this way. If you're interested, ask below or hit me up on tumblr. (clareithromycin.tumblr.com)


End file.
